Happy & Healthy
The mine and thine of pain
I read a newspaper almost every day. But even before I dive into the headlines on the front page and read background stories, I already have a pretty good idea if a Major Event has taken place in the world. And I know this solely by taking a glance at Instagram.
Every disastrous event in the past few years has received its own hashtag and its own images. Nothing wrong with that, you can express your sympathy or give voice to your disbelief, sadness, or anger over so much injustice, but sometimes I think it’s also okay to keep your mouth shut. Completely unnuanced statements are of course stupid and nonsensical anyway, but it sometimes seems like people want to show off with the suffering of others.
Let me give a few examples. A colleague's sister-in-law posted after the attack on the editorial office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, for instance, that she was also Charlie, cried for Paris, and that the city was still one of the most beautiful in the world despite this event. The best woman had never been to Paris in her life or even conquered the périphérique around the world city, so it seemed to me that she could say little about the beauty of the city. She was equally unfamiliar with the Hebdo magazine – and yet her heart cried out.
Or take folk singer Gordon, who recently narrowly escaped the bloody drama in Nice; he had actually wanted to celebrate Quatorze Juillet there, but didn’t go, he shared on Facebook. Our Gordon! Almost! Please comfort that boy!
And I don’t know how it is with you, but I really have so many acquaintances who had an acquaintance whose brother, sister, grandmother, friend, or acquaintance was on the downed flight MH17. It didn’t sit well with them that the acquaintance of their father’s colleague had perished. Really?
What is it that makes people draw great world suffering to themselves and try to make themselves the focal point of the sadness? Is it about attention? Is it a little ailment of the millennials, who always see themselves as the center of the universe, as is often said? Or is it human nature to want sympathy for something that doesn’t directly concern them? Just, for the pity, the concern? I don’t know, I must honestly confess. Whoever has a ready answer to this may speak up.
Forgive me for finding all that supposed sympathy and the I-was-almost-there with a picture-talk on social media a strong example of disaster tourism. Offering support, sure, and I also understand that some of the recent attacks can be seen as an attack on our freedom, but can we please not pretend that we ourselves have personally become victims, while that is not the case? And not make ourselves or our share bigger than it is? Even if it’s just because it’s so disrespectful to the real victims, to the people who are truly suffering. They are the ones who really hurt.
Written by Kalinka Hählen
